Monday, March 02, 2009

Peter Orszag

"I just reject the theory that the only thing that drives economic performance is the marginal tax rate on wealthy Americans, and the only way of being pro-market is to funnel billions and billions of dollars of subsidies to corporations."

Honestly, what the hell is this guy talking about? Who is complaining about subsidies being eliminated? (and, as someone very much against subsidies, I would like to know which ones these are so I can give credit to the Obama Administration)

Given the context in which this remark was made, it seems that Orszag is actually referring to the government letting people and corporations keep more of what they earn as a subsidy. That is disgusting. How do you subsidize someone with their own money? This only makes sense if you believe that all money belongs to the government first.

If this isn't what Orszag is talking about, and there are genuine subsidies being eliminated, then this administration is -- yet once again -- employing a straw man argument and attributing false beliefs to their opponents, given that I have not seen a single Republican complain about any elimination of subsidies in the proposed budget. This act is getting really old really fast.

But then again, consider that this is the same administration that just blew a hole in the deficit to the tune of $1.75 trillion and is now claiming that efforts to reduce it are "on track." It would be hilarious if it wasn't so tragic.